Hi Lawrence,

this is a useful probe I reckon. I mean your suggestion that the term
'a-g' has some kind of common currency (perhaps) that embodies an
advance dismissal. Avant-Garde might in uncertain usages mean:

-   signifying not one of 'us' (whomever that 'us' circumscribes)

-   weird and therefore (almost by default therefore) the subject of
suspicion and circumspection

-   'difficult' and therefore not to be trusted (not that those ideas
follow on for me but i think they do for some people along the lines of
if it can't be said in plain english then it's not worth saying) &c.

and i like the idea of the post-avant (which would sit comfortably
alongside postmodern as Modernism and the Avant-Garde do seem [on the
surface] to walk hand in glove through early twentieth century
histories / movements / manifestos / . . .).

Barrett Watten, close to the beginning of one chapter in 'The
Constructivist Moment' entitled "The Secret History of the Equal Sign",
writes of the avant-garde paradox:

'the avant-garde has been characterized as being in a paradoxical
historical situation: while it undertakes the overturning of the prior
aesthetic order as an irreversible act, it cannot survive a reentry
into history as a form of representation, without losing either
creative potential or critical force. As a critique of representation,
it would follow from this argument, the avant-garde can only contradict
itself as a stable form of representation. In academia, the historical
contradiction of the tenured radical ironically indicates such a
devolution of political agency, in moving from the public sphere to
educational institution, profession, and tenure.' Bujt he's very keen
on the term and positions lang-po clearly as an avant-garde tendency. I
remain sceptical of the term as before and as we would concur i think
on that advocate that now is the time of the postavant-garde (what a
delirious contradiction)!!

love and love
cris


>
> however, given that picasso is still routinely wheeled out as anything
> from
> outrageous to slightly suspect by many, it is difficult to know what is
> meant by the term avant garde when it is used by someone one doesn't
> know
> well
>
> and not just who is meant but how they are viewed
>
> i was looking at a photo of amongst others stein and breton the other
> day;
> and thinking that they were probably discussing how to cook cabbage to
> perfection rather than extending the territory of artistic
> experimentation
>
> and i am still mulling over the suggestion made at the bbk conference
> that
> stein isnt worth reading because she had money
>
> *
>
> interesting that we have post-modernism but not post avant-garde (or
> do we?)
>
> not that I would want that given my take on what is being discussed
> i.e. i
> am thinking of a vector rather than a point / destination, a process of
> itself rather than a means to an end
>
> hence. mindful of thje combative basis for the metaphor, I am
> suspicious
> both of attempts to create governance in liberating territory and of
> desire
> for an exit strategy
>
> salt and vinegar
>
>
> L
>